Consumer electronic devices are increasingly being used in conjunction with web-based applications. Such devices include personal computers, personal digital assistants, cellular phones, televisions and video game modules. Because of the near-ubiquity of such devices, there is a tremendous potential market for advertising of goods and services via these devices. However, most web-based advertising is largely unfocused due to a lack of information about the person who uses the device. Advertising could be more focused if it could be targeted to the specific interests of device users. Information about the users is typically obtained through some form of querying the device user. Typically, the user is asked to provide information when registering the device or when signing up for an online service. Information can also be obtained by monitoring device use. For example, an online game provider can monitor which games are accessed by a particular device registered to a known user. However, many consumer electronic devices, such as video game consoles, often have multiple users, e.g., members of the same family. These users may be different from the individual who registered the device. Unfortunately, currently existing technology only allows content providers to track the device and cannot distinguish among different users of a device.
In the prior art security systems for device such as personal computers have used biometric sensors such as fingerprint sensors as alternatives to entering a password. However, such security systems are not contingent on the identity of the user while the user is using the device. Instead, the user is only identified at when the user starts up the device. Once the device starts up, anyone can use the device. Such prior art security systems are, therefore, easily circumvented.
Thus, there is a need in the art, for methods and apparatus that overcome the above disadvantages.